Surely SALVO is simply a modernised air-launched ASAT system? What else could it be, when the commercial world has looked at, and rejected, such micro-launchers time and time again, and for good reasons?

This is a weapons system, guys, and not in terms of information warfare, either.

You are right it could be use in the anti-satellite role. But remember that is no difference between a ballistic missile and an orbital launcher other than the payload.

The commercial world does not have squadrons of F15s and F22s available for use as the first stage for micro-launchers. The launches can staged from any runway that can handle the F15 and the F22. AFAIK it just take a standardized ordnance rack and some software to enable this capability to launch a micro-sat or kinetic impactor to LEO.

The last news from Ventions was in September, when they successfully conducted a static fire test of electric pump-fed SALVO stage.

DARPA's public release process is time consuming enough that it tends to put a damper on talking about work they fund. It takes 30 days to get approval for just about anything, including a tweet or a short blog post.

That said, knowing that this is DARPA you should expect some changes in direction occasionally...